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Priority Log - Part 2
Log 06 Priority (Part II)
Still the Big Screen Car
The last two weeks have been a busy time at FONY Records! Maybe you've been working diligently on your upcoming projects — or maybe you've been fighting the sense that something is wrong. That this life, whether it's better or worse than before, is not your own.
Either way, passengers will finally receive a new objective on their phones...
From here on out, characters can regain their real memories. They can do so randomly, but the most reliable way is to work with another passenger: they will know that by touching foreheads (yes, headbutting counts) for pairs, or huddling very closely for groups, they will unlock some memories for one or all of them — of course, it also allows the other person to see and feel everything play out, as though they lived it themselves.
It's memshare time!
As passengers regain their memories, their AU lives will start to fade. Production crews disappear, texts from your parents delete themselves, your favorite coffee shop is suddenly empty... Because you can't have both.
At least one character will need to reject the AU in order for everyone to progress; there is no minimum comment count. Characters may go both routes, but should ultimately prioritize one for the AC Poll.
Remembering
As characters regain the memories of their real lives, all semblance of their fake ones will rapidly disappear. And choosing to remember comes with side effects: passengers are overtaken by a fierce chill as the source of the cold finally presents itself. The shadows in the empty buildings around them start to stretch out. These shades collect in huge swathes — and shape themselves into sharp, spindly arms and fingers. They'll grab at whoever passes, leaving them cold and constricted, making it hard to remember what's happened and trying to drag them back into the illusions of the AU. However, when these shadows have manifested, they're also vulnerable: they can be dissolved by using a strong light, like a fire, flashlight, or stage light. Even sunlight will do the trick, but physically resisting the shadows will grow more and more difficult as they sap warmth from everything they touch.
For those less physically inclined, the shades have one more weakness: real, happy memories. By focusing on something that brought them past comfort, however small, characters can drive off the shades little by little.
This force controlling the AU clearly lives in shadows. Characters can weaken it by confronting these shades, in which case they will find themselves alone with their memories and a ghostly, empty city of Danaca.
Resisting
But maybe you don't want to remember—maybe your life in Danaca is too good to give up, and you'd rather have this even if it's not real. Unfortunately, once the illusion starts to shatter, there's no stopping the cracks from spreading.Characters that don't regain their memories through contact with other passengers (whether intentionally or unintentionally), will still find their fake identities starting to fade away, but their real identities won't be able to fill the gaps. Instead, they'll find themselves... hollow. Devoid of personality, hopes and dreams. Empty.
...And in that empty space, something else might slip in. The steady collapsing of Danaca has left plenty of strong emotions and ghosts hovering in the air, and passengers might find themselves embodying a powerful current of despair or anger. Or perhaps one of the false denizens might inhabit them (Chadsef, anyone?). Contact with another passenger might also ignite enough memory to return their personality, but it might also give them the wrong one; they might start acting like someone from their memories instead, such as a childhood friend (or enemy).
Regardless of the scenario, there is one common thread: an innate desire for contact with other passengers. Though they won't remember why, passengers will eventually be driven to reclaim their original selves through memshare with other characters. Whether they get everything back before they leave is up to you!
OOC Notes
AC Check is up! The deadline to submit AC is December 1st, 11:59 p.m. EST. Please note this is a day extended as we've pushed the log back a day, AC schedule overall will remain as normal.
Memshare: To add a little spice, memories do not need to be limited by your character's canon point. That is to say, sharing scenes from your character's future will also count as memshare.
Continuing Memloss: Characters may or may not regain all their memories prior to leaving the car, player's choice. The memshare mechanic will no longer be in effect, however players are free to naturally regain memories over time.
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danganronpa spoils and death of minor continued :T
[ They're a bunch of children is what they are. All dressed in school uniforms, in whatever passes for 'hip with the teens' these days, a couple of them dolled up like cosplay freaks, but kids. Kids shouting and sniping accusations of murder and declarations of self-defense over the top of one another. ]
The fuck are— Hey!
[ They haven't noticed him—and he isn't sure he wants them to, but Vidal can't help it as he presses closer, reaching out to make some room between a stand-in sign and an uptight-looking kid in a white coat, shoving his way into the proceedings. He doesn't have to shove much, turns out. The hand that makes to move the stand slides right through it, and he starts, his own sudden incorporeal affliction hammered home by the fact that the kid on the left doesn't bat an eye at the sight of some intruder right at his elbow. ]
[ No, the young man's eerily intense eyes are far too focused across the way at the center of attention, but following his gaze, Vidal doesn't quite reach the scrappy-looking punk in one go. His eyes stop on—Toko, of all people, stood skittishly at a podium of her own. ]
The hell is this, Fukawa?
[ Blurted out on reflex, and it's the closest he's ever felt to being a ghost, the way she doesn't even flinch in surprise at the sound of his voice cutting across the haphazard defense. There are only eyes, now, for the nerd to the right that's speaking up (and out of the corner of his eye as Vidal turns to join them, the funerary portrait slashed red across the face sends an almost physical presence crawling down his spine as the dots connect, point by point, to murder). The accusations are being aimed elsewhere this time, up at the— the whatever the fuck Build-a-Bear from hell is presiding, sneering over them. The mastermind, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. And it returns the favor by spouting off ear-grating diatribes on justice and getting the show on the road, as it were. The punishment. ]
[ The punk's howls of protest are cut off with a sharp, metallic clack, as a collar clamps round his throat and yanks him backwards, dragging him bodily across the ground and reeling in hard and fast towards his fate, like some sadistic fisherman's woeful catch. ]
Jesus— Hey! HEY! [ Ghost or no ghost, Vidal's legs are moving on instinct, setting him sprinting off down the hall in pursuit. Around him, behind him, he's vaguely aware of being joined by the rest of the would-be jury, but all he can hear are the skids and thuds, the strangled, echoing screams. ]
[ And he reaches the end of the hall just in time for a chain-link fence to slam shut and catch him bodily, bouncing him back in a stagger that drops him to his knees. Of all the things he couldn't ghost his way through (as if he wouldn't ghost right through the victim if he had reached him). By the time Vidal's scrambled to his feet and gotten to clutching the fence again, the kid's been strung up, trussed to a pole, directly in the line of fire of two enormous fast-pitch wheels, whirring to life as the barrel loads with baseballs. ]
[ It looses one at lightning speed, and strikes its target true, low in the gut, with a sick, muted thwump. ]
No— [ One becomes two, two becomes five, five becomes ten, all before he can even blink. ] No, no no no, the fuck is this?!
[ It isn't real, is what it is. It's a vision, a night terror, a vivid memory. It's fear crawling into his skull and showing him things no one should ever see. Nevertheless, Vidal's grip tightens on the fence until red ruts begin to work their way into the crooks of his fingers, glaring down at little mister fucking Funshine Bear clowning around this fucked up machine in its little baseball costume. ]
What the fuck is this?!
[ It isn't real. Not to him... But it was to someone. Tearing his gaze away, he throws it sideways. Sure enough, there in the gaggle at the fence beside him, eyes blown as wide as he's ever seen them, Toko stands with all the rest in shell-shocked horror as the blows rain down, pummeling head to toe like a machine gun. Snapping and popping til cries become moans, and gurgling moans become deafening silence as the pitching machine runs dry. The singing whine of engines finally peters out... ]
[ It's quickly overtaken by the sound of his pounding heart up in his ears, his breaths that came too fast, the ringing. There isn't anywhere to put his eyes anymore. Not on the pulped and bloodied body still strapped helplessly in place, or the kids still staring helplessly, or Toko... He can't even close them without seeing red. Try as he might, squeezing them tight shut, the red gathers and knots in his chest until his throat goes tight. And when he opens them again... ]
[ The scene is gone. But the ill, constricted feeling lingers long enough to make his stomach lurch. Vidal hunches, the side of his fist pressed hard to his lips in an effort to stifle a retch. Which he manages just barely—swallowing hard, coughing, and swallowing again as his mind races, almost tripping over itself in an effort to tell him he's seen worse, you've seen worse, man up, you've seen— ]
[ The fuck has he seen worse than this?! The fuck has anyone seen worse than this? On set? Bodies plastered in visceral prosthetics, covered in fake blood? ]
[ No, there was something beyond the obvious sticking in that image of the young man, slumped in his bonds, broken and bleeding, digging and wrenching into the back of his mind like thorns. And that nervous look of horror in Toko's eyes... That look of despair, as her classmate was executed. Murdered... Somehow, it's all something she's told him before. That her world was thrown into chaos like this, she and all the rest, all just kids trapped in an unimaginable nightmare... She's still at his side, too. Eyes averted and body turned, but there nonetheless. Trembling. Vidal makes an effort to straighten up just a hint, and take a breath. ]
Hey, [ for the first time in what feels like an eternity, it slips out as something other than an exclamation, voice uncharacteristically brittle. He'd be hard pressed to miss the shaky swipe of her hand beneath her eyes, but... god, he's never felt at such a loss for words. ] You see something, just now?
[ Muttered quiet. A tell me I'm not crazy in five totally different words. ]
hope the next car is just disneyworld
Wh-why? Did you?
[As if it weren't obvious. Sight and sound give it all away, and not just for her this time. She can hear the gravel in his throat, and when she braves a glance Vidal has transformed into a battered man. No bruises or blood of course, but there's been a beating. Same as her.
Her hands migrate to her hair. She pulls at her scalp as she stumbles through her confession. There's no point in hiding it, and frankly, she's still scared. Holes in the sky and the spray of blood, the mania in those tar pit eyes...]
I saw...you. And this b-big clay monster thing. And this c-crazy guy who kept. Um. [She grimaces.] Flipping.
[How can she explain? It wasn't one of his shows. It wasn't — nothing they'd produced in this place was tangible like that was. She can remember more, still.]
You had to get stitches...
no subject
[ Fitting that the mention of stitches is what starts pulling it all together. Even as she trails off, he finds his hand wandering to knead at the crook of the shoulder she hadn’t even mentioned. It suddenly wasn’t quite so hard to remember there’d been... a knife to split him open, and something else to tear it wide. Something to slash him across the face, and something to knot around his throat… ]
[ Something more than props and blood bags. ]
… Yeah, [ he mutters gruffly, hand drifting up to feel the side of his neck, where younger skin still felt smooth and unmarred. ] A lotta stitches.
[ It feels strange to say, stranger still that it doesn’t sound wrong, because the only stitches he’s ever gotten were from nicking himself with a craft knife in middle school art—and he can’t help a full-body shudder the moment he tries to tell himself that. To lie to himself. ]
Fuck me, it’s fucking cold, [ Vidal seethes, folding his arms over his chest in lieu of reaching out for her again. Toko looks even more fragile than usual, and god knows he doesn’t want to risk plunging either of them back into that nightmare… But that’s not going to stop him plowing on ahead, picking it apart too. ] I saw you too, I saw…
[ The hell did he see, anyway? He takes a small breath. ]
Some crazy round-table courtroom, you and a bunch of other kids shouting bloody murder at each other, and one of ‘em… [ Even just trying to conjure the words is tinging his face towards an ashen sort of green, and he swallows, making a sudden effort not to blink—not to close his eyes and glimpse all the red still hiding there. ] —No there was this, this shitty little stuffed bear, with the world’s most annoying voice...
no subject
Yes. A lot of them. And if she's remembering rightly now, that wasn't the end to his indignities either.]
Y-you saw me?
[Doing what? She thought they might have been swept along for the same ride, but the tale he's spinning has nothing to do with the hummer chase and the maniacally possessed man.
The chill latches onto her then. When she shivers her face contorts, lips twisting fierce. Is it in horror? Disgust? Shock? Since arriving in this train car she's spent blissful weeks free of phantasms, ignorant of Despair in every iteration. Dodging paparazzi and avoiding Dimitri were the worst of her problems.
Except that isn't true either. There was something like that bear at the zoo. A living rendition, dropped from the sky just to mess with her. What was the point of it? To snap her out of it, or so the conductor could have a good old laugh?]
Monokuma. [She corrects, and it sounds foul enough to spit after.] I c-can't believe I forgot...one of them what, sorry?
[The answer is obvious the second it leaves her mouth. Baseballs and bikes, fire and firetrucks, construction machinery, stone compactors.]
It was an execution. Wasn't it? [She'd go ashen if she weren't already paled to paper. Toko steps back into his orbit by half a foot, still wary of touch but needing the closeness. He needs it too, but she can't chance giving him anything more. Freak memory dive aside, they're not bosom buddies. There's a string of texts to play witness to that.] Who? Was it the b-biker guy? Or the, um, frilly one with black hair? The redheaded guy?
[There's one or two she won't mention. The first because he lived. The second because, well. If there's a stain on humanity whose name should never be uttered again, it's that one.]
no subject
You gotta ask? [ Vidal mutters, almost incredulously. Not shocked that she doesn’t know, but rather that it happened more than once. Among other things, it gives him a moment’s pause. ] … It was the redhead, he—
[ It takes another half of a pause to really notice what the creeping tightness in his chest had been doing to his breathing—running it ragged, shallow and staccato, almost painful now that he’s focused on it. All the more bewildering the longer he does. He shakes his head. ]
C’mon, you remember now, don’t you? That wasn’t an execution, it was a fuckin’ snuff film.
[ And one he doesn’t want to revisit for the life of him… He’s had some pretty brutal stuff penned into his scripts, sure, even if they were obviously theatrical… Here comes the one-two punch of all that not holding a candle to reality, and the realization that he hadn’t been wrong before. He’d seen worse. He, too, came from a reality of worse. None of it scripted. That pre-written life of his is crumpling away by the second, like so much overhandled printer paper. ]
[ That still doesn’t make the absurd display any less fucked. It’s still more than enough to put a hitch in his breath and a crack in his voice, and suddenly he’s the one averting his misty eyes harder than usual. Like if he could just block out her face a little longer, maybe he could shake off the image of that wide-eyed, mortified, silent scream she'd worn with all the rest of them as their friend (their acquaintance? Their fellow human being,) was strung up and left at the mercy of something that shouldn't fucking exist. Beat back the moments that made it feel like looking into a mirror. ]
This the same buncha kids that tried to pin you for murder too?
[ One of them, at least, he could remember that much now, had tried to condemn Toko to this back in that nonsensical court. The frilly one had quite the accusatory mouth on her, hadn’t she? But from the sound of it, she’d met some sort of comeuppance along the way too… ]
no subject
Toko's jaw sets in a stern line. Her affect has gone flat, eyes cast somewhere to the left of him as she transcribes the details.]
Kuwata. The Ultimate Baseball Star. He was...ugh, he was an idiot. He walked right into that Pop Star bitch's trap, and when he turned the tables on her he h-had the chance to walk away. She'd locked herself in the bathroom. He ch-chose to break in and kill her. He did it to h-himself.
[That's not fair, but she's too riled to be considerate. These old wounds are made fresh again on entry, like a reunion tour or a high definition remaster, and her ire sparks anew. Why couldn't they just ignore it? The motives, the taunting, the seclusion in the school. Why would you choose to kill someone who didn't do anything to you? Why did they give up so easily?
Maybe it's easy for her to say. She didn't have much to get back to. Even squabbling, narcissistic, absentee celebrities made better family than the one she was born into. Were these new parents just phantoms, now? Other passengers molded to suit her needs?
No. She looks at Vidal and feels a solidity in her gut, an undeniable self separate from her own. Those substitutes are already slackening, features dissipating as she conjures their faces in her mind. Vidal feels more weighty by the minute.]
...It sort of was. W-we found out later it was being broadcast...
[Which explains all the pomp and circumstance. Why bother wasting all that money and time planning the most absurd execution possible if no one was going to see it?
She could elaborate, but he's got more questions. Worse ones. Toko flinches, hands winding around a lock of hair.]
Th-that is...yes, b-b-but it was only the one! And — he had a good reason! He only altered the crime scene after he found it, he w-wanted to test who would be— [And here, she trails off, stunned by the sudden twist in her gut. She was furious at the time. Betrayed. Devastated. But she loves him, and so she believes he did the right thing. He spared her the trouble of a bloody reveal. With her darker half exposed, no one could suspect her unless the murder fit all the fussy requirements. And why shouldn't he test their classmates? Why shouldn't he do as he pleases? He's a Togami, his will is beyond a commoner's comprehension.]
It was important t-to make sure we kn-knew who was capable of what. On b-both sides of the trial. And...I don't think he wanted to hurt me. I don't think he did. Really! He's...noble! M-Master Byakuya would n-never truly put me in danger!
[Not directly. He'd just leave her unconscious on the floor while an active killer was on the loose. Or neglect to look for her after a bomb blew up in her face.
She quiets down.]
no subject
[ It's happened once. At least once, stop saying it hasn't. At least one case out there—not one he'd been on, but he'd read enough—there'd been... the pushing of limits, of powers, all held in isolation, the threat of death, children and young adults at each other's throats. Misguided experiments. Wherever it comes from, it's just as far removed, a clouded notion. Easily some sort of science fiction drivel he'd come across once, nevermind the fact he feels the need to call it a case. ]
[ Anyway, that's not the kind of confirmation Vidal been expecting when making the comparison, and the lurch in his stomach isn't the feeling he'd expect it to dredge up. Not like this, anyway. It's sick enough to think of it broadcast to the world like some kind of twisted reality show, but there's something deeper—a fishhook low in his gut that rips through soft tissue and snags on sinew. Being the only witness (or part of a handful) to a man in the sort of last moments no one ever ought to see... It's more than a horrible memory, it feels like a violation of privacy to have it strung up and mocked in front of an audience. ]
[ The heat rising up his throat is palpable by the time Vidal notices his teeth are grit hard, bitten-short nails still managing to dig hard into his palms as she presses on, fumbling and fawning her way around protecting this... absolute shitheel. ]
Altered the crime— Good reason for altering the fucking crime scene, do you know how much of a psychopath you sound like right now? Almost as much as he does!
[ He doesn't have all the details, and he never will, considering her already rose-colored testimony. And it really isn't his business, is it? What's done is done, after all... So what's with the sudden flush of righteous indignation? Just this flood of absolute unbelievable nonsense finally coming to a head? Testing people, twisting the thumbscrews tight when the loser was demonstrably liable to get spectacularly slaughtered, guilty or otherwise... ]
Toko, there's a difference between wanting to hurt you and not caring if he does. I've worked with way too many people like that — I was one.
[ That last part comes out a little involuntarily, like a hiccup right at the tail end of his thought. Like something that he might have been proud of, back when he was one, and something that clenches up whenever it has to ponder how it feels about that now. Even through the haze of mixed-up memories. ]
There's that needs-of-the-many Star Trek bullshit and then there's throwing you under the bus to see who squeaks first, you or the brakes. Even if it all worked out how he wanted it, shit's anything but noble.
[ You can leave that part off at the very least, kid. It's fucking embarrassing. ]